Somewhat similar to waterfalls in the character of the tunes they produce (being distinguished, however, generally, by a greater softness and more gentle flow) are the waves, that, handsome in form, roll majestically shoreward, greeting the ear with a strange, dirge-like, yet, as it seems to the writer, pleasing harmony. Here is given a duet between the waves and zephyrs:-- "We sit beneath the dreaming moon, And gaze upon the sea: Our hearts with Nature are in tune; List to her minstrelsy. The waves chant low and soft their song, And kiss the rocks in glee; While zephyrs their sweet lay prolong,-- Their love-song to the sea." There is a pretty, delicate music made by the rippling, gurgling brooklet, as its transparent waters glide over its pebbly bottom. And there's the musical sea-shell. Place it to the ear, and you shall catch, as if in the far distance, the reverberating roll of the billowy ocean as it sings a mighty song. To this the poet Wordsworth very gracefully refers in the following lines:-- "I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell: To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely, and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for from within were heard Murmurings whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea." And an anonymous writer (it does not seem that he had good cause for hiding his name) thus discourses on the music of the sea:-- "The gray, unresting sea, Adown the bright and belting shore Breaking in untold melody, Makes music evermore. Centuries of vanished time, Since this glad earth's primeval morn, Have heard the grand, unpausing chime, Momently new born. Like as in cloistered piles Rich bursts of massive sounds upswell, Ringing along dim-lighted aisles With spirit-trancing spell; So on the surf-white strand Chants of deep peal the sea-waves raise, Like voices from a viewless land Hymning a hymn of praise. By times, in thunder-notes, The booming billows shoreward surge; By times a silver laugh it floats; By times a low, soft dirge. Souls more ennobled grow Listing the worldly anthem rise; Discords are drowned in the great flow Of Nature's harmonies. Men change and 'cease to be,' And empires rise and grow and fall; But the weird music of the sea Lives, and outlives them all. The mystic song shall last Till time itself no more shall be; Till seas and shores have passed, Lost in eternity."